Book Mole Larry Bowlden reviews Susanna Moore's novel The Life of Objects. It's about WWII seen through the eyes of a poor young Irish woman who is invited to the home of a wealthy German family to make lace. It begins in 1938. The family (though previously politically influential) retreats from Nazi politics, and in fact, retreats to a country estate where most of the book takes place. Having refused a foreign ambassador position under the Nazi's, the male landowner is under increasing scrutiny. Larry finds it to be a wonderful novel about how German resisters lived through the war and how they were treated as Russian and American forces entered Germany. A sad and lovely story about the loyalty she comes to feel for this family and their attempts to protect her in what becomes a hostile country.
- KBOO